Obama is visiting Flint next week to get a firsthand look at the water crisis

The president goes to Flint.
(Image credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

The White House announced Wednesday that President Obama will travel to Flint, Michigan, on Wednesday, May 4 to hear residents' accounts of the lead-contamination water crisis and to get an "in-person briefing on the federal efforts" that are in place to aid the community's recovery. Obama is also slated to deliver remarks to the Flint community.

The White House says that Obama decided to make the trip after he got an email from 8-year-old Mari Copeny, who is known as "Little Miss Flint," asking to meet with him last month when she attended the congressional hearings on the crisis. "Letters from kids like you are what makes me so optimistic for the future," Obama wrote in a letter dated Monday.

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